Globe is a filmic and sculptural project in collaboration with the Schools of Geography and Drama at Queen Mary University of London.

Globe is a copper sphere with four portholes housing cameras recording journeys and conversations with the public in East London. Globe started life free of imperfections. As it rolled through the streets it’s exterior degraded and scarred, taking on the impressions of each route travelled; mapping each journey.

The recorded personal narratives have been edited alongside the tumbling images of Globe’s revolving footage into a film entitled ‘Here Be Dragons’.

The film reveals the many ways in which a sense of belonging and home are established in an area defined and shaped by migration. It also addresses increasingly polarised attitudes towards immigration and difference in society. Globe challenges perceptions of home territory and geographical boundaries. Each rotation relates to the local and the global, questioning ideas of who falls inside and outside, them and us.

The project is informed by work on urban dwelling, in which both home and the city are construed as spheres of lived experience as well as sites of memory, nostalgia and the imagination.

One of the motivations for the project stems from the experience of Platun’s parents. Both were post-war migrants who individually moved to East London from Poland and Belarus.

Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence Grant. The project has secured additional ACE funding so it can continue its journey with new and existing partners, extending its geographical reach and impact.